


you've been on my mind since the flood

by but_seriously



Category: The Great (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously
Summary: A series of missing scenes between Peter and Catherine.
Relationships: Catherine/Peter III (The Great TV 2020)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 124





	you've been on my mind since the flood

**Author's Note:**

> this was a prompt on tumblr: peter/catherine + "(50) i will always protect you." 
> 
> yes, i am determinedly driving this fic train all the way to the end, my babes. there is no stopping a lady and her hyperfixation. come, comrades. ride out into the dawn with me and write fic. be the change you want to see in the world. i love you all, god bless.

****

_i can't feel no remorse, and you don't feel nothing back;_   
_and i don't feel nothing at all, and you can't feel nothing small_

**i. ophelia;**

_or, the one where catherine wakes after infecting herself with pox, and the consequences thereafter_

Peter rises before the sun the next day and his first thought is that going barefoot gets a bloke places much faster around here. He waves away the serf who comes with the usual anti-hangover concoction -

(the one his wife had whipped up her first morning here; it was something of an unspoken order for the serfs to prepare it every morning since he has taken to drinking Velementov under the table most nights)

\- in his haste to leave his room. He stumbles the halls half-inebriated, full-awake: crashes into another serf carrying a tray of ornately-decorated cupcakes, and another dragging a cart of dirty linen across the hall.

“Jesus Christ, how many serfs do we fucking have?” Peter hops around another serf who mumbles apologies; he seemed to be tending to a hungover soldier with gravy smeared all over his face.

“Well, uh, you see sir,” Orlo blusters as he finally catches up.

“It is too early for your stammering horse shit,” Peter snaps. “Get on with it.”

“You are not usually awake this early and thus do not run into so many of the serfs making preparations for the day,” Orlo swallows his next words, “ _and neither am I._ ”

“Huh.” Peter tilts his head as if in thought. He dodges another serf with expert, light, dancer’s feet (as Aunt Lisbeth calls them). “Why are you here?”

“You banged on my door, rather heedlessly, and demanded I come along to confront the Empress on last night’s foolishness.”

Peter instantly sobers up.

Right.

The Empress.

The pox.

The _idiot_.

He quickens his pace to her apartments. Orlo makes a sound that is half a groan and half a whimper as he re-ties the belt of his robe more securely before following after him. His stomping alerts the guards down the hall because they immediately leap aside to throw the doors open.

Striding into her room, he reaches unnecessarily to bat at Archie’s plague mask and demands, “is she alright?”

Chekhov is awake immediately. Leo, he suddenly notices with a bit of distaste in the back of his throat, is a bit slower to stir. His eyes land on her bed.

Catherine is not fucking there.

“Where the _fuck_ is the Empr–”

All at once–

With a voice like the crack of a whip:

“Husband.”

He turns around.

It is her, in the doorway.

“Fuck. Catherine.”

It is the oddest of things: he had expected to be consoled by the sight of his wife up and on her feet, clearly healthy and pox-free and decidedly not dead. The pressure tightening like a fist around his lungs does not let up. He feels many things. Relief. A heavy blanket. Concern. Something that grabbed at his brows. Anger. A cracking of his wrist as his nails puncture palms. Confusion. Because she is alive and well right in front of his fucking eyes, and he is still feeling all these things.

It is too much.

Logic tells him to just pick one to focus on right now.

He settles on anger.

“That cannot fucking happen again.” He does not recognise his own voice. It is steely, a hardened kind of resolve, yes - but oh how quiet it is. He wonders if Leo, half lost in sleep, can even hear. He would probably think _how fucking terrifying the Emperor is, it is no wonder many cower at even the thought of him._ “Am I understood.”

It is not a question.

The look on Catherine’s face is not the contrition he had expected. It is not apologetic, it is not commiseration. It is thunderous. He feels the sparks all the way across the room. He wonders if she’s some German forest witch, the way she makes him sometimes want to take a step back. 

“Oh, seeing as how you have outlawed variolation I am pretty fucking sure it will not be happening again.” The anger is not enough to drive her. He sees her try to grab it by the throat, kicking and screaming, to take her all the way to him, but she does not have it in her. Not the way he does. Her chin trembles and teeth bite down onto her lip. “If you would allow me to applaud your choice?”

“Uh.” He is confused. He does take that step back now, thanks, and he feels another emotion try to worm its way into his chest. “Whilst it is nice that you are asking permission for once, you do not need that to shower praise on m–”

“Should I perhaps also curtsey?” Catherine says with none of the pretty lace that should come with such a question. It does not sound much of a question at all. It sounded more like a challenge. Even with unshed tears shining in her eyes she is daring him to come closer. “Kneel at your feet and beg for your blessing?”

“I am getting the sense that you are being sarcastic right now.”

“My, what a _clever_ Emperor we have.”

Behind him, Orlo shuffles his feet and mutters, “Marial, I need help with my - with - help with the -”

“Yes. Those things.” Marial immediately strides out of the room, Orlo going quickly after her.

He realises belatedly he had not given them leave.

“Everyone,” he says calmly. Too calmly. “Get out.”

Chekhov clasps one hand on Leo’s shoulder, and they both make their way. Catherine’s gaze does not even waver to return the look Leo is sending her way.

He counts the seconds until the door shuts and the sound of footsteps melt away into the quiet stillness of the morning. The fire has died, so there is no crackling to fill in the space of silence that expands between him and his wife now, making the room seem colder somehow. There is only the sound of their breathing.

He is the first to speak.

“You are acting weird and impertinent, and must cease it.”

Catherine raises her chin. It has since stopped trembling. “Or what?”

“Or you will - wife, what the fuck, you know what happens when I lose my temper.”

“You shoot my bear and punch my stomach.”

“Seeing as how your bear only just arrived two weeks ago, I will resist from shooting it.”

“And the violence?”

“Remains to be seen, though I have grown decidedly less fond of laying such a hand on you of late.”

The ice in Catherine’s eyes still do not thaw. “Why are you here?”

“I came to check up on you–”

“You have seen me. I am fine. Good day to you, Emperor.”

He mouths wordlessly as he feels his temper flare. “Fucking - stop it. Why are you being like this?”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Catherine replies scathingly, “I implored you to listen, to find another way, I came to you with my heart in my hands and you decided to step all over it, spilling blood everywhere–”

“Bit too early for that, do you not thi–”

"--lying to me when you said you would reconsider if I could think of a new solution, stringing me along on some wild goose chase-- not bothering to defend my honour when I came to you - I came to you! Because I needed you --" 

"Honestly, wife, if you had lead with this things might have been a bit different yesterday--" 

“– _burning_ the serfs alive, disappointing me so deeply, and breaking my heart.”

Oh.

“Oh,” he says.

Catherine continues staring coldly at him.

“I.” He clears his throat. “I am sorry.” A quick glance down at his toes before he flicks his eyes back to her chin, her ears. “About breaking your heart. But I am not sorry about stopping an outbreak and nipping it in the bud.”

“Nipping,” she repeats in slow disbelief. “In the bud. Such tidy metaphors to describe a world where Vlad is still dead.”

He frowns. “Who?”

“Parachute boy. A clever boy. A kind boy, who has never done anything wrong in his life other than not having a choice in being born poor.” Her chin shakes once more and her voice grows thick. “My _friend_.”

“A serf?” he is so shocked he almost chokes on his spit. “You consider a serf your companion?”

Catherine does not deign him with a reply. Her brows have scrunched together in the middle of her forehead, she has brought her fingers to them to either smooth them out, or shield her tears from him. He suspects the latter.

“Catherine.”

“Stop. I am fine.”

He sighs. “I just wanted to keep us all - _you_ , especially - safe.”

Her eyes glitter suddenly. An image shoulders itself into his mind - an image of gems, uncut, yet still having a sharpness to its edges. In this light her eyes look more blue than green when she says, “I thank you, husband, for always reminding me of this systemic failure in our universe. How lovely and convenient that we get to look down at the bonfires from our tall spires.”

With a tilt of his head he can imagine it all as she describes. “Sounds pretty.”

Her face positively contracts into itself in a rather alarming way, as if she is trying with all her might to delay the onslaught of violent tears. “You - please. Get out.”

“Catherine–”

“Please,” she says again. Her voice is raspy, hoarse. She starts to clutch her side. “Go. Please. I cannot breathe.”

She doubles over, chest heaving, as if the feather-light thinness of her night gown were leaden restraints.

“Catherine?” he says again in rising alarm. He strides towards her as she half stumbles back into an armchair; he only just manages to catch her so she falls properly into the seat. Every intake of breath she takes, or tries to, is a strangled pitch. And he’d just sent Chekhov away too. _Fuck._

What the fuck is he supposed to do - ?

Suddenly it's Grigor wrestling his turn into Peter's mindeye, Grigor aged thirteen, grasping both his hands in his, urging him to calmness after they had discovered that his father had drowned his favourite dog.

Peter reaches for her. “Catherine, just - here, take my hand.”

When she does not take it, eyes staring wide and unseeing ahead of her, he presses his palm to hers and squeezes. Catherine hiccups, not anticipating the touch. Peter uses his free hand to tilt her chin upwards, to look at him. “Can you hear me? My hand. Grip it.”

He widens his eyes, tries to imagine his eyes as magnets to pull her in.

She grips.

“Now suck in a breath. Watch me do it.” He demonstrates inhaling for her, a rather forceful gust of air. She follows just as he does. “Let it expand in your chest a moment. And now… blow.”

Her hair moves where his breath meets the gold strands. She blows out a shuddering breath, and it warms the space between them. 

“That’s it,” he encourages softly. “Now do it again. Slowly.”

Catherine does, and in a miracle of a second suddenly shifts back into herself, and she stiffens all over. She wrenches her hand out of his and pushes herself to her feet, causing him to clamber backwards lest their foreheads bang together.

“I am fine now. I would like to rest. Please go.”

She does not look at him. He has half a mind to remind her that she had brought this on herself, but then decides against it. It was not - technically - true anyway, and he did not feel good about saying such nasty things about his wife whilst she is upset. It was always something Mother would do, right before she lights a cigarette.

He thins his lips and takes another step back, tonight choosing to concede to her. 

Slowly, backwards, pretending his eyes are still magnets, he walks to the door. 

She still does not look.

He pauses on a step, and hesitates on a sentence. “About that serf. Your… friend.”

Catherine does not seem particularly interested in what he has to say… but her eyes move to his.

“You must know that I…” He takes a deep breath. He looks at her once more, and, unable to finish the sentence, leaves the room.

**Author's Note:**

> comments make my day, i was an unloved child, pls make me happy
> 
> oh and come find me on tumblr @ highgaarden, i love to hear from you


End file.
